About Me
I am a passionate and outgoing creative director who is comfortable leading design teams and aligning customer needs to business goals. Throughout my career I have been known for introducing innovative ideas to solve problems and utilizing new technology to better connect with customers. In my design approach, I focus on understanding my audience and delivering them empathetic content.
In 2015 I started working in Mixed Reality and developing UX design principles for this emerging technology. Scroll down to learn more about my journey in that space.
How I got into Metaverse Design
I started at 3M in our transportation business. The transportation group at 3M makes everything shiny that goes on a road way (signs, pavement markings, work zone sheeting, etc.). The best way to showcase these products is on a roadway, at night, from the inside of a car. We have a test track in Minnesota where customers can go to see our product catalog, but 3M is a global company. How do we bring the test track anywhere in the world? The answer I came up with in 2015 was virtual reality.
First steps into VR/AR
My first step into VR was with the development of tradeshow interactive product content. From 2015 - 2020 I was making a new VR demo every year to showcase our products to customers globally in ways that we had not been able to in the past.
The success of these demos allowed me to continue working with leaders around the company to develop AR/VR content for many different groups and many different products.
Developing a Metaverse Team
Starting in 2020 I established a more dedicated structure to our AR/VR activities. This included creating an IT structure to support AR/VR activities, expanding our library of equipment, and building a team of agile mixed reality prototypers.
The demand for AR/VR products increased dramatically during the pandemic and I ended up converting my dining room into a full staging area for these activities!
Design Principles for the Metaverse
AR/VR is a very new concept for a lot of businesses. Most of the customers that I work with have a hard time understanding what makes a quality experience. So I came up with a series of basic design principles that I use to communicate the important elements we need to consider while working on AR/VR projects.
There is obviously more nuance to this, but these basic principles have really helped to educate new concepts to partners who have little to no experience with AR/VR.